The beginnings of Berdyaev’s critical marxism (in light of his unpublished correspondence with Kautsky)

Abstract

The article presents a relatively underresearched period in the life and work of Nikolai Berdyaev, which spans over the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Within this period (in 1899) Berdyaev’s article titled “A. F. Lange and Critical Philosophy and their Relation to Marxism” was published in Die Neue Zeit, a magazine, edited by Karl Kautsky. As a result, the two began to correspond. Hence Berdyaev’s revision of Marxism has commenced, and his transition from the “orthodox” Marxism to a “critical” Marxism began. Presumably, he started correspondence with Karl Kautsky thanks to his brother, Sergei Alexandrovich Berdyaev; both brothers were involved in smuggling abroad literary materials for revolutionary publications, the older Sergei had known Kautsky earlier, corresponded with him, addressing him as his teacher and possibly, had published his poems in Kautsky’s journal. Russian translations of two letters from Nikolai Berdyaev to Kautsky, written in 1900, and one from Sergei Berdyaev, written in 1899, are provided for the first time; the originals of the letters are kept in the archives of Karl and Elisa Kautsky at the International Institut of Social History in Amsterdam.